The Suitcase
Shilong, 12:07 a.m.
The rain had turned the narrow lane behind Laitumkhrah into a black mirror. Neon from a closed pharmacy bled pink across the puddles. Arjun killed the engine of his battered Splendor, pulled off his helmet, and let the cold highland air bite his face. Midnight deliveries always paid double, but tonight the extra two hundred rupees felt cursed.
He thumbed his cousin’s number.
“Oi, Kynsai, have you reached home yet or are you still flirting with that girl from Nongrim Hills?”
No answer. Just static and the low hum of distant church bells.
That was when he saw it.
A black suitcase, hard-shell, expensive-looking, dumped against the concrete pillar of the abandoned petrol pump. No one left luggage like that in Shillong at midnight. Not unless they never planned to come back for it.
Arjun ended the call and walked over, boots splashing. The suitcase was heavy, even nudged with his foot. A dark streak ran from one corner too thick for rainwater, too red. It had soaked into the cracked footpath like spilled paan.
He crouched. The zip was already half-open, as if someone had started the job and lost nerve.
He shouldn’t have looked.
He knew that even before his fingers touched the cold metal teeth.
One pull and the lid flopped back.
A woman’s face stared up at him eyes wide, mouth slightly open in frozen surprise. Her neck ended in a wet, ragged circle. Long black hair, still glossy, floated in the blood that filled the bottom third of the case like some obscene fish tank.
Arjun’s phone slipped from his hand and clattered into a puddle. The scream that should have come out stayed trapped in his throat, thin and useless.
Somewhere above, on the wet pine hills, a dog started barking. The sound echoed down the empty road, sharp as breaking glass.
He backed away until his spine hit the petrol pump pillar. The head in the suitcase kept staring, pupils fixed on the sodium streetlight, reflecting nothing.
Rain began again, harder now, drumming on the open lid like impatient fingers.
Arjun finally found his voice.
It came out small, almost polite.
“Kiba dei?”
(Who is this?)
No one answered. Only the rain, the barking dog, and the dead woman’s eyes watching him decide what kind of man he was going to be at twelve-eleven on a Tuesday night in Shilong.
